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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538185">’Til Death Do Us Part</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn'>CypressSunn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Just Married Exchange, M/M, Time Traveler Has Sex With Past Version of Their Not Yet Spouse Who is Dead in Their Future</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:21:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,397</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538185</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Between them, they are quite a picture; the before and the after.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>208</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>101 Prompts Meme, Just Married Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>’Til Death Do Us Part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/chase_acow/gifts">chase_acow</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the Just Married Exchange 2020. Chosen supplementary tag # Time Traveler Has Sex With Past Version of Their Not Yet Spouse Who is Dead in Their Future. Written also with inspiration from my personal writing meme, prompt #17: Regrets.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When it comes to the logistics of procuring a safehouse, Bucky vetos Sam at every turn. It is the first non-negotiable aspect of the burgeoning partnership; no matter the locale or the threat at hand, the Winter Soldier has final say in where they go to ground. Sam has yet to find a flaw in his judgement. Bucky was right about there being too many open sight-lines in Sao Paulo. He was right again abut there being too many onlookers in Kyiv for supply runs. T'bilisi would have gotten them killed without that seamless exit strategy. And the fight Sam picked in Sapporo over being able to shake a CIA tail had been proven wrong in Munich when Bucky had to take the wheel.</p><p>It’s not that Sam really cares all that much. If he’s going to work with an ex-assassin Soviet Union spook he may as well take advantage of that skillset. For every potential safehouse he prohibits, there is more than likely an attached memory of carnage. Bucky knows what is and isn’t safe from years of executing targets caught resting on their laurels.</p><p>Sam just doesn’t understand why Bucky still feels the need to breathe down his neck in <em>this</em> safehouse from a whole continent away. </p><p>Bucky is prowling his way through eastern Asia while Sam is stuck in Amsterdam. They’re in four messages deep that morning; one to take his medications, one to insist on a glass of water over caffeine, another to remind Sam to keep the blinds drawn and the last not to oversleep. The final text carries an infuriatingly accusing tone, as if asking how dare Sam sleep away his downtime.</p><p>“Not like it’s your fault I’m bedridden to begin with,” Sam mutters low to himself despite there being no one around to hear him. Unlike the firing spree his partner had gone on where there had been too many bodies, all closing in. The Winter Soldier marching forward against the Hydra sect, ready for his last stand. He had nearly gotten them both killed. It was Sam who got them out of there, taking two rounds to his bullet proof vest in the process. No fragments had pierced his amour, but they came damn close.</p><p>Bucky hadn’t even thanked him.</p><p>Sam rubs his still sore ribs. Of course there is logic to Bucky’s present request. A shifted sleep schedule puts his return to the field off course. But Sam is tired of Bucky being right about everything. He climbs back into bed, deciding on some well deserved shut-eye is worth missing Bucky’s next handful of hen-pecking messages.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Sam wakes in the dead of night. It takes him a moment to realize he is not alone.</p><p>On autopilot, he glances at his phone to find more texts on the secure line. Bucky’s return is on delay. Waiting on believable papers, hard to forge and harder to extract and informant with a noticeable east European accent. It wouldn’t be if it were a two man job and they both know it. Why else would Bucky leave an admonishing final text reminding him to rest?</p><p>Sam groans. “Like I’m getting out of this bed for anything short of the threat of a Hydra new world order…”</p><p>Rolling over, he sees him before his eyes drift closed. Where the streetlight should be streaming through the thin slot in the blinds is a solid block in the shape of a man. Even in the dark, he is too familiar. Long hair, a silver arm, balance slightly to the side to compensate for the weight.</p><p>“Bucky?” Sam rubs sleep from his eyes. The Winter Soldier doesn't say anything in return. He just stands and stares back. Rousing more fully, Sam sees burning red numerals beside him on the cabinet, the alarm clock alerting him that not nearly enough time has passed. Bucky cannot be here. He was too far out, two days travel at least. Whoever the fuck this is, he isn’t his partner.</p><p>Sam goes for his gun, surprised he’s still alive, that he’s got time enough to defend himself but he’s willing to take advantage of the rookie mistake. He’s got the not-Bucky dead to rights, target trained to center mass. It'll get messy at this close range.</p><p>“So,” he begins conversational as he switches the safety off, “SHIELD tech? Hydra?”</p><p>If a shadow could look perplexed, the one manages to.</p><p>“You're not the first person to steal his face,” Sam insists.</p><p>More silence. A slight head tilt.</p><p>“… Right. Zemo.”</p><p>The hair on the back of Sam’s arms stand to attention. That voice was convincing. Unsettlingly close to the real thing. All the time Sam spent beleaguered by it, bickering and fighting and shouting, and yes even pestering him. Was he wrong? Sam’s finger on the trigger falters. </p><p>“Nice touch with the vocal modulator,” Sam goads at him, uncertainty rising. “Really adds to the performance. You even cut off your own arm?”</p><p>The shadow looks at his hand. Then back at Sam. Sam isn’t sure why but the motion looks disbelieving somehow. As if the imposter believes this even less than Sam does.</p><p>“What is the date?” asks that uncanny voice again.</p><p>Sam lowers his gun by a fraction.</p><p>“August the second.”</p><p>“The year. Tell me the year.”</p><p>“Twenty twenty.”</p><p>“Right. This… this is the first time we used this safehouse. You hated the broken air conditioner. Reminded you of Bakhmala.”</p><p>Sam puts the gun on the bedside cabinet. He’s even talking in the past tense, because of course he was. At the sign of de-escalation, the shadow steps forward. Sam can take him in clearly then; longer hair, more stubble, a different prosthetic.</p><p>“Time travel… Really?” Future-Bucky nods and Sam wants to roll over and go back to sleep. If he’s about to find out he gets disintegrated from existence one more time, Sam is hanging up his wings. “Another apocalypse? Again?”</p><p>Bucky shakes his head but Sam doesn’t buy it.</p><p>“See, you're telling me no but that look on your face says the world ended.”</p><p>Bucky, future Bucky, makes a pained sound. A second passes before Sam realizes it is supposed to be a laugh. “Maybe it did,” he muses. “You told me once that the world ends all the time, just differently for different people.”</p><p>“Doesn’t sound like me,” Sam argues. “Never been much of a fatalist.” Never as much an optimist as Steve used to be either, but a man needs a healthy middle ground.</p><p>“Not yet, it doesn't,” Bucky admits. “I think I rubbed off on you in the end.”</p><p>Bucky still isn’t making any sudden moves when he down at the foot of Sam’s bed. The mattress dips beneath his body with a creak. Sam is unsure why the observation strikes him. It feels odd, uncanny, too familiar. Perhaps part of him is still suspecting that this was not real. That Bucky was only taking up space inside his head, not in this cramped canal house.</p><p>“What happened to you, Bucky? Why are you— how are you—? Time travel isn’t something you can do at the drop of a dime.”</p><p>“Tell that to Wakanda. Shuri didn’t like being outdone by Pym and the rest. So she agreed to help me.”</p><p>Sam wants to argue. It makes no sense for Bucky to enlist on of the greatest engineering minds in the world to accomplish this. Whatever this is. If his mission entailed nothing more than leerily creeping up on Sam, he might just cause an international incident.</p><p>Bucky smiles at him. “You’re thinking that I’m being ridiculous.”</p><p>“Lucky guess,” Sam returns, unimpressed. “I’m always thinking that about you.”</p><p>“I think I remember this.” Bucky’s head turns, his gaze dragging over the ceiling, the furnishings, the view of the kitchen still covered in spools of bandages. “You got hurt because of me. I wasn’t watching my back so you had to. They shot you… and you were lying there with your vest shattered. I thought you… I don't remember how many of them I took down but I didn't stop when you asked me to. When you were screaming at me. I heard you but I didn't stop. Didn't want to.”</p><p>Sam remembers it too. Bucky standing over him, calling his name. His eyes went cold when Sam couldn't catch enough wind in his chest to speak back. The gunfire got a lot louder after that. Before the smoke had cleared, Bucky had knelt over him, gloved hands skimming for injury, for affirmations of life. Much the same way Bucky touches Sam now. With his hand, his flesh and blood hand, he reaches out gently. His fingers flinch at contact with the skin of Sam’s cheek.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Sam thinks he hears but he cannot be sure. The moment is airless and still, as if breathing were a sign of weakness giving into something. Bucky hasn’t moved his hand where it is still hot against his skin and Sam tamps down on the wild impulse that tells him; touch him back.</p><p>“Wait.” Sam sees it then. There is something dangling from Bucky’s neck. Something silver and something gold. Sam aches as he keens forward, catching it in his hands and yanking on it hard. Bucky has no choice but to acquiesce to the forceful motion. His head bows closer to Sam.</p><p>Sam who cannot believe what he is seeing. Hung from the chain is two rings and a set of dog tags. The faint spiral etching into the gilded bands is unmistakable. He would would recognize it anywhere.</p><p>“Those are my parents’ rings.”</p><p>Bucky, whatever the hell is wrong with him, is slow to react, looking caught. He doesn’t deny it. He can’t. Sam has already found the familiar inscriptions inside the bands. It’s more telling than seeing his own name and social security number stamped on the dog tags.</p><p>“We— how? When?”</p><p>“I can’t tell you that.”</p><p>Sam heaves out of bed, ignoring his protesting ribs.</p><p>“Lay back down,” Bucky says. Past or future, he’s fretting over him. Only now it is more than a minor annoyance or yet another source of friction in their partnership. It means something. </p><p>Sam’s head spins and he almost reels into a wall.</p><p>“Sam, just listen —”</p><p>“You have my parents wedding rings,” he accuses, pointing at the evidence hanging from Bucky’s stainless steel chain. “Both of them. Not one. Both. With my dog tags.” Sam rubs his temples and tries to breathe past the knot in his chest. “Whatever this thing between us is going to be, from whatever timeline your zapped out of… it clearly ends worse for me than a few bruised ribs.”</p><p>“It didn’t <em> end</em>,” Bucky growls. “We didn’t just stop. You— they <em>took</em> you from me.”</p><p>“I die,” Sam says because one of them has to admit it. Bucky and his clenched fists and gritted teeth seem a good enough indication that he is not ready to say the words to Sam while he he still breathes in front of him. “In whatever the hell timeline you're from, I'm dead.”</p><p>Without knowing why, Sam knows it’s worse than being disappeared into the ether. More final, perhaps</p><p>“No,” Bucky insists. “You are here. You are alive, here.” Bucky moves into Sam's space. There’s furious tears in his eyes before he swears something in Russian or Xhosa for all Sam knows before he kisses him.</p><p>Sam's not surprised by the kiss. The pressure and scrape of Bucky feels too inevitable for a moment of astonishment. They were always hurtling towards, he thinks, either this or killing each other. He’s only surprised to find how much it doesn’t feel like a first kiss to <em> him</em>. Bucky wraps his hands around Sam’s shoulders and leads him slowly, laying Sam gingerly back down on the bed. He kisses Sam one last time on the mouth before angling down his jaw and throat. Sam’s hands grip at Bucky’s long strands of hair on their own accord. They lead that mouth along to every pressure point he already seems to know. Bucky kisses so hard at his pulse point above his collarbones Sam knows its going to leave a mark.</p><p>“The other you is gonna see that,” Sam complains. His reproval is none too sincere. He lets Bucky pull off his shirt and drag his mouth over his chest.</p><p>“You can tell me to wait my turn,” Bucky counters, paradoxically. He licks a stripe over Sam’s navel that makes him shudder. “I waited longer.”</p><p>Bucky’s intentions are on full display when he pulls at the drawstring of Sam’s sweatpants. Sam can hear the telltale <em> clunk </em>hitting the floor as Bucky kicks off his shoes, getting comfortable as he nips at his hip bones. Sam feels a pointless wave of self consciousness there in the dark. He can’t help but feel helplessly seen as Bucky revisits old scars Sam’s half forgotten about himself. All Sam’s seen in return is enough to tell him that in some nondescript point in the future, Bucky is going to swap out his old prosthetic. </p><p>Bucky strokes him through his sweatpants that are still hanging close from his hip bones. His grip is firm and steady. It’s harder to bear this way, than if Bucky had just reached past the waistband to warm him up. All the heated anticipation and suspense in every prolonged stroke that denies Sam the feel of Bucky’s hand on him builds higher. Sam cranes his neck and curses under his breath. All his blood is running south means his thoughts come slower before he puts it all together. Bucky is well aware of what this does to him. He’s done this before.</p><p>“Look at me, Sam.” Bucky nuzzles down between Sam’s thighs, finally doing away with his sweats. Sam follows his command and glances down. Bucky’s dark shining eyes are zeroed in him through his lashes. The ferocious ardour is unmistakable. He is primed and set; a man on mission. Sam shivers. Understanding sets in too late to save him. Nothing survives the Winter Soldier. What he wants, he gets.</p><p>He pumps Sam’s dick once in his dry grip. Too rough, too tight to be enjoyable, or at least it should be. Lingering just this side of painful as Sam’s whole body tightens. Bucky moves his hand again and — <em> yes </em>— Sam realizes he likes it like that. It is as dizzying as it is infuriating to be so far behind the learning curve of his own body. He’s in over his head and they both know it. But Bucky getting his mouth on him is the last straw.</p><p>His vision goes white for one scintillating second. Bucky takes him deeper, slower. It's the hottest thing Sam’s ever known and he can’t— he can’t—</p><p>“Buck…” Sam groans out in warning.</p><p>But Bucky pays him no mind. He’s adamant about the strategy he’s settled on, opting to choke himself on Sam, eyes watering, launching assault after assault on Sam’s ability to think. Bucky breathes hard and harsh through his nose when it seems like he bothers to breathe at all. Swallowing Sam down seems to be a more urgent need required for his survival. He doesn’t slow in the least and Sam can’t keep his hands from tearing at the bedsheets. He could swear he heard something rip. He lifts his hips with a hiss, straining his still-healing ribs before Bucky leans in with counterpressure. He keeps his metal arm flung over Sam’s abdomen, holding him in place while he sucks harder.</p><p>Bucky makes a wretched keening sound when Sam threads his fingers through his hair. Sam loves the sound of it. Loves knowing he’s not the only one defenseless and desperate here. So he tugs harder and harder and Bucky just takes it beautifully with eyes pressed shut. He pulls Sam deeper into his tight throat until his nose crashes into the skin of his pelvis. </p><p>Sam can’t hold on after that.</p><p>Coming so hard it hurts, he doesn’t have a second to warn Bucky. Not that it matters. He is still swallowing him down, mouthing the oversensitive flesh and that hurts too. Groaning, Sam pushes at Bucky’s shoulders.</p><p>“Too much, Buck… I can’t…”</p><p>With a shudder, Bucky tenses up rears back. If Sam could think, he might be able to place the word for the emotion crossing Bucky’s face when he finally let him go. A sad wanting, or a need for something he cannot take back.</p><p>* * *</p><p>For all his determination to die on the hill that is sucking Sam’s dick, Bucky is utterly passive in the afterglow. Wordless and attentive, rolling off Sam to clean him but otherwise staying put. The single bed barely fits the both of them. Together they’re all elbows and sweat and aching disbelief.</p><p>“I cannot believe you bent the rules of time and space to come back and fuck me in a dingy safehouse.” Sam shakes his head. It’s insane, so why try to understand it? “And you still haven’t apologized for getting me shot.”</p><p>“Yes I did.”</p><p>“That wasn’t an apology.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.” Bucky tries again. “I shouldn’t have charged ahead without you.” Bucky leans over Sam, pulling his hair back to place kiss after kiss against the center left of his chest. “But you owe me an apology, too.”</p><p>Sam snaps out of the haze of Bucky’s ministrations. </p><p>“What for?”</p><p>“You died on me,” points out Bucky as he lays his head on Sam’s bicep.</p><p>“Are you serious?” Sam takes a deep breath. “You want me to apologize for <em> that</em>?” </p><p>“You should at least make it up to me,” Bucky maintains. “After all, we made vows. You broke yours.”</p><p>Sam shakes his head. He can’t stand this man. How did he for a second forget that he cannot stand this man? Oh, right. The sex. The mind-melting, earth-shattering, timeline-fucking sex. That does not mean he’s letting Bucky get away with this, orgasms or no. Sam leverages himself up against the headboard of the bed, swatting Bucky’s hands away when he tries to pull him back down.</p><p>“Most marriage vows have a <em> til death do us part </em> clause!”</p><p>“Still doesn’t mean you get to quit on me, Wilson.” </p><p>Sam is going to kick him out of this bed. And when he’s done, he’s going to invite the other Bucky into the bed just to kick him out, too. Bucky seems to be able to hear unspoken diatribe play over Sam’s face. His hands close around the dogtags and rings still hanging from his neck. He laughs. Actually laughs.</p><p>“You’re— you’re <em> screwing </em>with me.”</p><p>“A little,” Bucky admits, still chuckling. “Believe me, future you would appreciate it.”</p><p>The present him certainly doesn’t. He’s flustered, embarrassed that Bucky could play him so well. </p><p>“Well, at least I know you’re coping with grief better than can be expected. You know most people spiral after the death of a loved one. Blame themselves, blame the universe. But you, you go the extra mile of being mad at me for it. Not healthy, but the best we can hope for with you, James.”</p><p>Bucky sniggers low and deep. “You only call me James when you’re pissed.”</p><p>Sam elbows him in the side. It only makes Bucky howl with more laughter, tilting him off the side of the too-small bed. Sam props up on his elbows at the edge of the bad to glare down at him. Bucky just keeps beaming, brighter than Sam’s ever seen before.</p><p>Oh shit, Sam thinks. The obvious dawns on him; they really were in love.</p><p>* * *</p><p>“So this was some kind of marriage of convenience, right? Or a cover story that went on too long.” Sam is digging around his duffel looking for clothes that don’t reek of sex. He intentionally isn’t looking at Bucky who still lingers near.</p><p>“Don’t. Don’t do that.”</p><p>“I’m not doing anything,” Sam says innocently.</p><p>Bucky draws Sam a step back by his shoulders. He wraps his arms around him and Sam’s heart skips a beat.</p><p>“I know this is a lot,” Bucky kisses Sam’s shoulder, “and I know how you handle things when it gets to be too much. You try to figure out to break it down, how to carry it. Or, if you can’t do that you find a way to let it roll off your back with a joke.”</p><p>Sam’s mouth falls open and closes again when the automatic retort does not come. All his skepticism seeps out of him leaving him shell-shocked and exposed. Not knowing what to do with his hands, Sam tosses the bag aside and riffles through one of Bucky’s, the other Bucky’s. The man owed Sam more than a clean shirt for all the shit he was going to pull from here until the future.</p><p>“You know, part of me thought I would like a new and improved, emotionally aware Bucky Barnes,” Sam mutters. “More the fool I, because you’re more trouble than your worth.”</p><p>The trouble being this agonizing sharpness in Sam’s chest.</p><p>“You can try and make this out to be less, if that is what you need to do,” Bucky promises. “But you can’t make us out to be nothing.”</p><p>“I didn’t say it was nothing, Buck,” Sam spins around, ready to argue, to defend, to withdraw. To do anything but stand here in this uncertain hurt that did not yet belong to him. “But you and me? The us from here and now? We haven’t so much as <em> looked </em>at each other like this and now I’ve had my dick in your mouth—”</p><p>Bucky stops, shakes his head with a look of pity. </p><p>“What, d’you mean that you— That he—” Sam points disbelieving to the door as if the other Bucky is standing right behind it.</p><p>Bucky nods.</p><p>“How long then? How long has he been—”</p><p>“The whole time,” Bucky says, like it is obvious. “All of it.”</p><p>“No,” Sam refutes. None of it made sense. Maybe if he stretches the lengths of his imagination he could see something for them down the line, but not yet. There was no way Bucky felt something for him besides scorn and indifference. “No, you never said anything. <em> He </em>never said anything.”</p><p>“You didn’t either,” Bucky offers with a shrug.</p><p>“Of course I didn’t,” Sam huffs. “I'm the professional one in this relationship.”</p><p>“We we’re married, Sam,” Bucky reminds him with a deep sigh. As if Sam could forget with those rings still hanging around his neck. “Both of us were well past all the pride and the bullshit. You can’t try to tell me that you don’t feel something, that you haven’t for a while.”</p><p>Sam feels lightheaded again. An oncoming vertigo that will not let him find his bearings. It is all made worse by the sudden knowledge that all he needs to do is grab onto Bucky to find solid ground. But he can’t let himself. A man needs a minute before facing his marriage, his widower, and his mortality all at once. Sam initiates his retreat, stalking off to the bathroom. It’s small and cramped the way all European facilities are. It doesn’t stop Bucky from following him in.</p><p>“I let you suck me off once,” Sam bemoans, “and now think everything’s an invitation.”</p><p>Buck hums contentedly without denial. He busies himself with the waterproof bandage tape he sticks to Sam’s abdomen.</p><p>“I missed these stupid arguments,” Bucky whispers. “Out of everything, that’s what I missed the most. All the little ways we drove each other up the wall.”</p><p>Sam scoffs. “Now I know for sure our marriage wasn’t healthy.”</p><p>Bucky reaches past Sam to turn the hot water knob. The shower sputters weakly to life. </p><p>“I missed fighting with you over the radio and how high the thermostat goes. I missed fighting about German beer —”</p><p>“That stuff is awful,” Sam interjects.</p><p>“ — it’s the only good thing the krauts have ever done —”</p><p>Sam knows his future is bleak if this is the man he let’s sweep him off his feet. This is the man in front of him, taking off his pants, is the one Sam gives his family ring to. This is the man he vows to honor and cherish. This is the man he dies loving. A bastard who drinks unpronounceable pretentious beers. He probably likes pilsners, too.</p><p>Dragging Sam under the spray of the water, Sam learns that Bucky’s prosthetic heats up a little too hot. It feels good on his hip where Bucky steadies them. He still doesn’t shut up; still waxing poetic in that way that makes Sam’s heart beat too hard.</p><p>“We used to fight about how long is an acceptable amount of time for dishes to sit in the sink. How thick the blankets should be. What time in the afternoon it is before cooking breakfast food is just lazy…”</p><p>They are sudsy and slippery and leaning against each other and the glass of the shower stall. Sam’s finally got his hand on Bucky’s dick. He’s exploring the feel of it in his hand, enjoying the length and heft of it more than he wants to admit it. Sam stokes him faster and faster, causing Bucky’s voice to break.</p><p>“God, like that just like that… Shit, we used to do this after fighting, too. Having that same argument over which of us made the first move.” Bucky looses his balance and leans into the tile wall. “Which one of us gave in first, which held out the longest.”</p><p>“I think I win that one.” Sam bites Bucky’s ear. He swears in Russian again.</p><p>“O блядь,” Bucky knocks his head against the wall. He doesn’t stop writhing against Sam. “I missed the way you shave with all that lather. I missed your cologne. I missed your music. I missed the way you sound in the morning. I missed the way you clean your guns and make coffee and—”</p><p>Sam kisses him hard on the mouth and Bucky groans to completion.</p><p>* * *</p><p>After another round of getting off, they climb out of the shower and towel off. Sam’s stomach rumbles while Bucky is applying new bandages. “Let me cook for you,” he says. It’s a tender offer. Sam can’t turn it down.</p><p>“Tell me something only my husband would know about me,” Sam asks when Bucky fires up the stove. He’s still fishing for details, for evidence, for any part of this that cannot add up.</p><p>“You still don’t trust me?” Bucky asks but does not wait for an answer. He pulls Sam’s burner out of his coat pocket and unlocks the screen without hesitation. Sam thinks that is his proof before he hears a song start playing. He must be streaming it. Sam’s never downloaded anything to that phone.</p><p>“I don’t know this song.”</p><p>“You will. You love it.”</p><p>The music has a touch of old school. Sultry but danceable. The crooning voice sounds familiar but Sam can’t place it. He finds himself swaying along. Bucky is too, even as he flips the omelette in the frying pan onto a plate. He doesn’t bring it to the table, not right away. He holds out his head to Sam.</p><p>Defeated, Sam steps into his arms.</p><p>“This was our first dance,” Bucky tells him.</p><p>“Still is,” Sam points out.</p><p>Bucky chuckles. “We honeymoon in Wakanda since I’m an esteemed guest of the royal family. And yes, a white boy really is your in with African royalty.” Sam accidentally on purpose steps on Bucky’s foot but they don’t lose their rhythm. “Shuri stole your falcon wings for an upgrade after the ceremony. I still remember your face.”</p><p>“That's where you ended up after I die?”</p><p>The song stops. Bucky takes a step back.</p><p>“Let's not talk about that.”</p><p>“Fine,” Sam says in a tone that indicates he is anything but. Sam sits back down to eat.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Bucky is washing dishes and Sam is watching Bucky washing dishes when the ex-assassin-slash-future-widower tells him, “Ask me about the op when I come back. I won’t want to talk about it, but I'll need to.”</p><p>Sam shuffles uneasy in his chair. He doesn’t know what to do with that. “I can try, Buck, but I can’t make you. I can't be your partner and your therapist. That's not—”</p><p>“— Not how this works, I know. It's just… it's a conversation that matters.”</p><p>Sam knows it’s futile but he still asks, “Why?”</p><p>“I can’t tell you that.”</p><p>It hurts his abdomen but it’s well worth it to stand too fast and show Bucky the backside of his head. </p><p>Bucky sighs after him. “Still stubborn and sulky.”</p><p>“I am not,” Sam swears.</p><p>“I remember when people thought I was the brooding one, just because I’m quiet. They've never seen you holding a grudge.”</p><p>Sam wheels around, furious. “I didn’t break reality to come find you and not tell you why,” Sam shouts. “I didn’t throw myself at you, take you to bed, before you could even dream of thinking about us. You’re the one doing this and not giving me any answers.” At that Bucky has the good sense to look chastised. It isn’t enough for Sam. “I could change our whole future,” Sam says quiet. It’s a threat, even if he does not mean it to be. “The thing that makes us, this? I could stop it, change it. All because of what you’re doing now.”</p><p>“Is that what you want?” Bucky refuses to look at him when he asks.</p><p>“What I want is for my partners to stop fucking around with timelines! Stop going back in the past to make love declarations you don’t have any business making!”</p><p>“I haven’t told you that I—” Bucky stops. “Shit. I didn’t tell you I love you.”</p><p>“No! That’s not what I meant!” But Bucky moves so fast Sam’s rings and dog tags bounce against his chest. He takes Sam by the wrists, eyes on fire and ready to do something stupid like fall down to his knees. Sam shoves him away.</p><p>“Don’t—”</p><p>“Sam. Please.”</p><p>“I mean it, Buck, don’t.” He swallows hard. He can’t get his heartbeat under control, its pounding in his ears. Like falling with peak velocity there’s too much moving past him, nothing to grab onto and nothing to save him now. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything. I need you to give me that much.”</p><p>Bucky hangs back, helplessly watching Sam struggle. Sam does his best to push air into his chest, hopeless in his own right. Between them, they are quite a picture; the before and the after.</p><p>* * * </p><p>In their time together they leave the safehouse only once. Bucky heads out the front door and Sam thinks he’s running off. Out of the entire mind-fuck of this whole night, Bucky vanishing on him would be the icing on the cake. Sam follows after him to confront him, ready to chase, but realizes it’s not needed. Bucky is sitting next to the canal, legs dangling over the stone embankment above the water.</p><p>Sam sits next to him.</p><p>“Coming here was selfish.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Sam agrees.</p><p>“I swear, I didn’t think we’d fall into bed.” Bucky tosses a stone in the water. The ripples disrupt the flowing current. “The plan was just to talk to you. To hear your voice.”</p><p>“I believe the part where you said you ‘didn’t think’.”</p><p>Bucky laughs. Sam can see his breath in the last of the night chill. The sky above them is breaking. A few streaks of violet and orange trail through the sky. The sun is close. Sam lets his shoulder rest against Bucky’s. All his anger evaporates. It’s hard to hold onto when he can hold Bucky’s hand instead. The uncertainty of it all still feels tremendous, big enough that Sam isn’t sure which way is up. But Bucky has already lived through the worst of it. The answers Sam wants are ahead of him. Everything for Bucky is already behind him.</p><p>“Do you have any regrets?” Sam asks when the sky turns red.</p><p>Bucky looks at him incredulously.</p><p>“I mean <em> other </em>than what happens to me.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Bucky runs a hand through his hair. “Even that aside, I’ve got more regrets than I can count. I didn’t… I didn’t tell you soon enough. I didn't kiss you long enough. Didn’t dance with you enough. Didn’t cook for you enough. Didn’t stay in bed with you on Sunday mornings enough.” Bucky’s grip on Sam’s hand tightens. “I should have taken my time with you. Should have made you talk about Riley more, and Steve, too. I didn’t fight for you hard enough. Or maybe I fought too hard, I don’t know…”</p><p>Sam wants to ask what that means. He couldn’t bear it if Bucky refuses to tell him, though. He moves to stand the, when the moment gets to be unbearable, but after Sam us more than sure the image of Bucky in the early sunlight is burned into his memory. He leads them both back inside.</p><p>* * *</p><p>They land on the bed. It feels only natural at this point. Sam is hard again, but the riotous need to climb inside each other has abated somewhat. Now they simply tangle and sway and come together over and over again, chasing each other’s little gasps and pleas. Sam isn’t sure how he is supposed to give this up. Once his head stops spinning and the world resets to normal, how is he supposed to go ahead knowing he’s had this? Not knowing when he could have it again?</p><p>Bucky has terrible timing. Sam’s lost in thought when he whispers, “I have to go soon.”</p><p>Sam reaches out on instinct, as if grabbing Bucky will keep him near. </p><p>“Stay.”</p><p>“I can’t.” Bucky kisses him like burning and stops again. “You know I can’t”</p><p>“Alright,” Sam muses, “so I know killing the other you isn’t an option. Just makes the timeline worse. And I'm not saying we could find some other way of getting rid of him and going on the lam together, but I'm throwing it out there.”</p><p>“I left things that badly here?” Bucky laughs.</p><p>“You're insufferable.”</p><p>Bucky laughs harder. </p><p>“No, I mean it,” Sam insists. “You’re more neanderthal than man. You groan and grunt more than you talk. And when you do talk it’s to tell me I’m doing something wrong.” </p><p>“It’s because I’m in love with you,” Bucky says before he can stop himself.  “<em>He’s</em> in love with you. The me that's here, now, in this timeline coming back home to you. He's in love with you and it scares him. It scares him every second of every hour, thinking that something could take you away from him. He’s scared of becoming me.”</p><p>Sam kisses him. “It wasn’t your fault. Whatever happened, whatever it was.”</p><p>“I know. At least, most days, I know.”</p><p>Sam wants to believe him. He rubs his hand against Bucky's cheek, the same way he had Sam's when he arrived. “For what it’s worth, Buck, you're not as bad off as you could be. I can see you’re still hurt. I’m sure there were bad bays but the wound’s not… not fresh. That means you’re doing more than surviving. That's more than most people manage.”</p><p>“I thought for a while I was going to follow you. Let it kill me, too. Been chasing after you for so long it almost made sense.”</p><p>“I mean, you still kind of did.”</p><p>Bucky chuckles warmly and presses his forehead against Sam's. “If I’m better it’s because I had you, even for a little while. And because I knew better than to turn up at my husband’s doorstep step in pieces.”</p><p>Sam wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist. He still hasn’t given up the idea that he could somehow convince him to stay. Why should Steve Rogers get to be the only one who gets away with it?</p><p>“Promise me something,” Bucky whispers.</p><p>“Anything.”</p><p>“Promise me that this time, we don’t split up in Bogotá.”</p><p>Sam doesn’t follow his meaning. “Columbia? Wait, what happens in Columbia?”</p><p>“Just, promise me”</p><p>“We stay together in Bogotá,” Sam nods shakily. </p><p>Bucky leans in for one last kiss but he’s gone. The solid weight of him erased from the bed, from the very air Sam is breathing in and the dark he tries in vain to blink past.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Bucky barges in a few hours later. Sam can’t help but feel he's looking at a stranger, simultaneously waiting for Bucky to look at him with that full body recognition he would possess in time. Instead, Bucky wrinkles his face in a scowl.</p><p>“You've had someone here.”</p><p>Sam signs. He’s gotten rid of all the evidence. How could he know that.</p><p>“You letting someone in the safehouse defeats the purpose of a safehouse. It's sloppy. Anything could have happened and I wouldn’t have been here to…” Bucky stops. “We need to move you.” There's an icy judgement overtone.</p><p>“The location is still secure.”</p><p>“You should have to be resting. Healing”</p><p>“I wasn’t overexerting myself,” Sam lies. “Now get over here. There’s coffee.”</p><p>Bucky sits down, grudgingly. Sam slides him a cup and watches his face. There is no hint of affection, not even gratitude. Just a stern brow and a frown. Sam’s not sure why he even bothered hoping. </p><p>Turning back towards the counter, Sam pours his own cup. In the windowpane through the curtains he dared to open against Bucky’s strict instructions, he can see a reflection. Behind him, Bucky fusses with his mug. He looks up at Sam, watching the back of his head. He doesn’t speak, but Sam has counseled enough veterans, from the solemn to the inconsolable, to know exactly what it looks like when a man wants to give into words he cannot find. Emotions and jealousy and need are all under pressure in the Winter Soldier’s tight veneer of control. He can hear Bucky so clearly then.</p><p>
  <em>He's scared of becoming me.</em>
</p><p>Sam is sure then, surer than anything that they will find their way, to Bogotá and beyond. When he turns around, Bucky’s already averted his gaze. Sam sits next to him at the table. “Tell me what happened on the op.”</p><p>Bucky’s grimace abates by the slightest of fractions. “It was nothing.”</p><p>Sam takes his time stirring his coffee, watching the steam rise. “Tell me anyway.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>fin.</em> </strong>
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